Union City Rotary Club - Weekly Bulletin & News

Today, Union City Rotary brings to a close it’s 2011 Scholarship Program for another successful year, as the Verhine Scholarship Program unfolds, with ninety one Union City High School Graduates, who have completed at least one year of secondary education, receiving a total of $132,500 in funds to be used extending their secondary education.

We are extremely pleased to welcome these recipients, along with special guest and former State Representative for the 77th District of Tennessee, Judy Barker.

Judy agreed to join us today for the purpose of offering these students encouragment in whatever field they choose, whether it be college or vocational. Her topic will be "Taking Healthy Risks, and Identifying Your Talents", especially encouraging them to truly expand their horizons.

Judy received her BS degree in Social Work from UT Martin, her Masters degree in Social Work from UT Knoxville and then on to Memphis University where she received a Law degree.

While at UT Martin, she met her husband-to-be Wayne, Judy and Wayne have two sons, Tyler and Parks. She tells of her first romantic date with Wayne. It seems that Wayne thought the best way to impress Judy was to take her to Reelfoot Lake and swoon her into marriage by showing her his Duck Blind.

Next week, Kihyon Kim, who moved to the United States at the age of 17 from South Korea, will visit. Her presentation will be a program which began in 2000, known as ShelterBox, which has aided more than one million disaster survivors in over 70 countries since that time.

A ShelterBox is a basic survival kit, and does not duplicate aid provided by other disaster relief organizations. These boxes are located in strategic locations throughout the globe, ready to be distributed in any disaster situation.

ShelterBox, which was originated by a Rotarian, is the largest Rotary project in the 100+ year history of the organization. The survival kit in a box enables a family that has lost everything to subsist for up to one year with a roof overhead, warmth and protection, drinkable water, a simple kitchen with heat for cooking and essential tools to begin restoring their lives.

In 2002, ShelterBox USA was started by the Rotary Club of Lakewood Ranch, Florida. Since then, the USA affiliate has received support from thousands of Rotary clubs in the United States.

Kihyon is currently Assistant Governor SRT (ShelterBox Response Team), so one can be sure next weeks program will have interesting testimony and experiences shared.

Last week, Tennessee’s 24th District State Senator Roy Herron was on hand, up-dating Union City Rotarians with legislature passed during the recently completed General Assembly. Roy’s wife Nancy accompanied him last week.

Roy had very high praise for our new governor, saying of Gov. Haslam, "I think we’ve got a good man as governor, I know he is smart and deeply grounded in his faith, a hard worker, and very responsive to our loss of Goodyear and he responded really well to our requests for the Cates Landing Project". He also spent a few minutes explaining the funding of the harbor and how he thinks it is going to positively effect this area.

Along those positive notes, he pointed out the development of the West Tennessee Mega Site in Haywood County, saying "It’s going to have economic impact here and beyond, the money is there and ready for continuation with that project".

Unemployment Benefits were next on the list, explaining where the funding was coming from for these benefits, saying that federal funding would make up the bulk, with the rest coming from sales taxes locally and there was more than enough there to fund unemployment, "although the program does have people abusing it, these issues were not addressed during this legislation", he said.

He reported, "some of the good news from this legislation was that a lot of benefits concerning TennCare were in line for cuts, but they have either been reduced or in some cases been eliminated completely, which was good news to recipients and hospitals alike".

He touched on changes in Medicare, informing us that the federal government is in the process of shifting that responsibility from federal to state, but it comes with no shifting of money for funding.

Election issues were next on the list, with the main change there being photo identification required before you are able to vote, along with fewer days to early vote, saying, "this law is supposed to cut down on voter fraud".

In other election law changes, corporate contributions were touched on, with legislation opening that up, inviting foreign countries to be able to invest up to $21,000 to an election, whether they have ties to Tennessee or not.

Coming Attractions

June 10 - Kihyon Kim, Rotary Shelter Box Program.

June 17 - Joshua Owens, UN Projects in the Sudan.

June 24 - Officer Installation

Birthdays

June 08 - Shea Riley, III

　Anniversaries

　June 04 - John and Pam Clendenin

June 07 - Phillip and Katie Creswell

June 07 - Jason and Kristi Kizer

June 09 - Dennis and Lisa Sigman

Rotary Year End

In two weeks Union City Rotary will install new officers for year 2011-2012. Below is a list of these officers.

President......................................Al Creswell

President Elect.........................Richard Graham

Secretary.....................................Chuck Doss

Sgt.-at-Arms............................Sam Bradberry

Ascending Director...........................Ron Green

Director....................................Hadley Malone

Director...................................Charles Kirkland

Past President & Director...............Gary Houston

Return to Weekly Bulletin News Index page.